Shades of Blue
by melissaeverdeen13
Summary: Katniss and Peeta seemingly have everything they could ever need. A warm home, their two children, and each other. But something about Katniss isn't right. There's only so much time to find out what it is; and how late is too late?


She had never felt pain like this before.

Not from the battle wounds, not from the burns that left her hidden skin scarred and mangled.

This pain felt like she was being ripped in half from the inside, by a human that was supposedly smaller than a loaf of Peeta's bread. By the feel of this, though, he was monstrous.

"I can see a head!" Someone had said it, although she couldn't pinpoint who. She felt as if she would black out any moment and miss the birth entirely. She wasn't fighting it, either. At this point, she almost wanted to miss it, just so the pain would stop.

She didn't feel as if she could handle much more.

When Tempest was born, Katniss's silent prayers had been answered. The fear that she had experienced while carrying their daughter inside her for nine months quickly dissipated upon seeing her face. Their daughter was dark, like all the babies in the Seam that Katniss was familiar with growing up, and she felt like Tempest's mother right away. She knew her daughter from the inside out from the very first moment she saw her.

But this one – this one's skin was peach-pink with a mop of blonde hair atop his head. His face was small and perfect, his eyes a twinkling blue, just like his father. Just like Prim.

Peeta's sleep was black and dreamless, something that used to count as rare, when Katniss's screams jolted him out of it. She was sitting up in bed with her gray eyes wide open; the vein in her neck bulging to the point of explosion and her hands gripping fistfuls of their downy comforter like it was the sole force holding her to life.

"Katniss, Katniss," he said her name over and over again, his voice low and lulling. She'd been having more nightmares lately than ever before, more in a week than Peeta had even in his worst times. "Wake up. You're having a nightmare, Katniss, wake up."

Suddenly, her eyes shifted over to his and the glassiness faded away as recognition filtered in. "Peeta," she murmured, and wrapped her arms around his shoulders, tight as vices, and her fingers took a claw-like grip on his bare skin. "You were...she was..."

"Shh..." Her grip began to loosen and he pulled her small form into his lap to rock her back and forth, just like they did with Tempest when she was a small baby. It was one of the only things that would get her to stop crying. "It was a dream; you were just dreaming."

"But I saw..." she whimpered, pushing her face into his neck. He could feel her eyelashes batting against his pulse point, fluttering open, closed and back open again. "All gone. You were all gone."

"I'm right here now," he said, and ran his pointer finger down the knobs of her spine. He felt like they were more discernible than ever before. He wondered to himself if she'd been eating enough.

Katniss quieted and rested her full weight against him as he continued to rock her. He wanted her to fall back to sleep, but her breathing pattern told him that she was awake and she was going to stay that way.

"It's still early," he said, "You should go-"

"Mama...?" There were soft footsteps by the bedroom door and the two looked up to see Tempest, their daughter, standing there in her long nightshirt. Her stick-straight brunette hair was a mess atop her head as she rubbed her eyes with one bony, knuckled fist. She just turned six last week. "Mama's cryin'?"

Katniss's demeanor shifted instantly. "Mama's okay," she insisted, crawling out of Peeta's lap and hopping off the bed gracefully. She extended her arms to Tempest and their daughter sleepily walked into them, then let her mother pick her up. Watching them stand in the middle of the room, Peeta couldn't help but grin. Katniss and Tempest were carbon copies of one another; seeing the little girl in her mother's arms looked like Katniss was holding a tiny version of herself.

"Did you have the bad dream again?" Tempest asked. She leaned away from Katniss so she could study her face and watch her expression. Nothing got past her.

"I did," Katniss said, attempting to brush Tempest's hair flat with her fingers, to no avail. "But I feel better now that you're here."

"And Daddy," Tempest said, glancing over at Peeta and smiling like they had a secret.

"Daddy too, of course," Katniss replied. "Always."

The look in Katniss's eyes was tired, that wasn't hard for Peeta to read. As she stood in the center of the room and swayed with Tempest in her arms, she wasn't really there. She'd been different ever since Roan was born four weeks ago; somehow not herself.

As Peeta thought of their son, his wailing cries broke the silence from the next room over. Peeta saw Katniss's minute movement – her shoulders deflating just slightly – as she heard the sound, too.

"There's your brother," she said to Tempest as she set her feet down on the floor.

"No!" the little girl insisted, yanking at Katniss's nightgown roughly. "It's _my_ turn with Mama. He _always_ takes my turn. It's not _fair_!" The last word was shouted, and it seemed to momentarily jolt Katniss out of the trance she had fallen into.

"Tempest, please," she pleaded weakly, laying a flat hand on their daughter's bony shoulder. She left the room to go tend to Roan, hearing Tempest's angry stomps head over to the bed where Peeta was still sitting as she left.

"I'm here," she said quietly as she walked into Roan's room. When Tempest was his age, Katniss's voice alone would soothe her cries, but it was different with him. He was hungry all the time. What he wanted was milk. Always.

Katniss knew what it was like to be that hungry, but she felt he was taking more and more of her away each time she fed him. After, she felt drained in every sense of the word.

"It's okay," she cooed, gently lifting her son out of the wooden crib that Peeta had built for Tempest the moment they found out Katniss was pregnant for the first time. "Mama's got you now."

His screams were loud right next to her ear; so much so that she cringed away from him. Cringed away from her own baby. Holding his small form in her arms, she felt like she didn't know this tiny creature. She felt like she couldn't have been the one who grew him inside her for nine long, grueling months.

The moment he latched to her chest, he quieted. His tiny fingers fanned out over her sternum and he was still against her. Katniss laid her head back against the rocking chair and slowly rocked back and forth, closing her eyes in the process. It always took Roan a long time to eat.

While he ate, he was quiet, satisfied, and she was giving him everything he needed. At any time other than this, she felt horribly inadequate. Though this was the easiest time with the baby, she couldn't help but feel like a cow at the same time; one udder out as he greedily pawed at her. She used to be able to watch Tempest the whole time she nursed and be amazed at the tiny human in her arms. Now, she couldn't even lower her eyes to glance at Roan.

All she felt towards him was resentment.

When Roan was finished eating, she held him upright and patted his back to burp him. After a few pats, instead of just an air pocket, he spewed spit-up all over her bare shoulder. She closed her eyes in exasperation and felt her head start to pound as he started to fuss again.

"Why did you throw up everything you just ate?" she asked, unsure of where to put him to clean herself up. "Peeta," she called out, and he appeared in the doorway as if he had been waiting for something to go wrong. She had expected as much.

"Oh no, he spit it up..." Peeta said, and Katniss outstretched the baby to him and he took him readily. "Hey, Roan!" he said enthusiastically. "What's with the whole throwing up business? That doesn't work very well! Now you're just going to be hungry again, and you know how hard that is for Mama." Katniss felt Peeta glance over to her as she mopped her shoulder up with a burp cloth, but she didn't look back. She didn't feel like participating in the baby talk this morning.

"Roan threw up?" Tempest asked, making her way into the nursery as well. "Ew, I smell it! Ew, mama, it's so gross!"

"Tempest, then leave!" Katniss snapped, and it silenced the room. Peeta looked at her like he didn't recognize her and Tempest closed her mouth that had been open, ready with a new complaint. "I'm sorry, I'm just..."

"No, it's okay," Peeta said, and kissed the side of her head. "Come on, Temp, let's go make some breakfast."

As they walked away, Katniss heard Tempest say, "Well, Roan can't help us."

"Well, I guess he'll have to find something to do while he waits, then."

"What can he do? He's a baby!" Tempest laughed and it rang throughout the whole house, making tingles go up and down Katniss's arms. Her daughter's laugh was one of the best sounds she had ever heard, and Peeta could always make her laugh.

It had been ages since she'd laughed for Katniss.

She stood in the center of the nursery with her arms crossed, faced the window and forced a smile. It felt foreign on her face; she couldn't remember the last time she was genuinely happy. Before the baby was born, she knew that for a fact.

She just had to get back to her old self. It shouldn't be this hard.

Katniss walked back into she and Peeta's bathroom and opened the medicine cabinet, finding the orange bottle of morphling tablets that she'd been prescribed for back pain just after Roan was born. She popped three in her mouth; two just wasn't doing the trick anymore.

The next day, they all made lunch together in the kitchen. Peeta and Tempest were playing some sort of word game and Katniss was watching them, amused at their banter. Roan was napping in a sling on Peeta's chest – sound asleep even as Peeta chopped carrots for the soup they were making.

As they ate together, Roan woke up and squalled to eat. Katniss was in the middle of a spoonful of soup when she heard it, and she met Peeta's eyes over their bowls.

"No, Mama, don't leave," Tempest begged, knowing what Roan's cries meant by now. "Can't he just wait?"

As she said those words, his cries got louder and more insistent. "No, he can't just wait," Katniss said, her voice low and defeated. "Here, Peeta, I'll take him." She lifted the baby from the sling and went into the front room where the cushioned rocking chair was. She sat facing the window and pulled the front of her shirt down; Roan was already desperately trying to find something to latch onto. Her skin was red and raw, and when he started to nurse it felt like hundreds of needles all being pierced into her at once. She clenched her teeth and endured it because she had no other choice.

A few minutes later, Tempest walked in with remnants of soup still coated around her mouth. She looked torn, like she wanted to spend time around her mother but she didn't want it to be like this. "Did I used to eat like that?" she asked, staring at the baby. Katniss nodded. "I don't remember _that_. Did I cry so much as him?"

"Nowhere near as much," Katniss said, and she meant for her voice to have good humor in it, but even to herself she sounded resentful.

"Daddy said he's gotta go," Tempest said, and looked up at Peeta for approval when he entered the room.

"I'm going to go open up the bakery for lunch hours," he said, "if that's okay. I won't be there long, Blythe will be in for her shift, but I have the keys." Katniss nodded slowly. "I figured since he's eating, he'll be happy for a while."

"I know how to take care of our son, Peeta," Katniss snapped. "I've done it before."

"I know you do," he backtracked, his voice gentle and unassuming, "I was just saying, I wouldn't want you to need my help and me not be here, so I thought now was the best time to go."

"Just go." She waved him away with an attempt of a reassuring smile on her face. "We'll be fine here."

He walked over to the rocking chair and gave Katniss, Tempest and Roan all a kiss on top of their heads. "See you soon," he said, and turned his back to walk out the door.

Walking down the dirt path that headed into town, Peeta felt an uneasy stone in the pit of his stomach. He didn't know why it was there, but it was highly unwelcome. He shouldn't be so distrusting of Katniss to not want to leave her alone with their children. Distrust wasn't exactly the right word, but he couldn't place his finger on what was.

He never felt like this leaving her with Tempest when she was small. Katniss was a different person entirely since Roan was born, but he didn't know how to fix it. He didn't even know if she realized it herself.

But he was sure that she must. There was no way that she couldn't. Sometimes she was so inside her own head that he hardly recognized her, and he missed the old Katniss something awful. But he would never tell her that.

Peeta walked up to the bakery to find his employee, Blythe, already waiting on the front step for him. She'd worked for him for a couple years now, ever since her husband died and she was made a young widow. He smiled upon seeing her, glad that he'd be able to get home sooner since she was already here, and unlocked the door for her. He made small talk, told her he really needed to work on getting her a set of keys, and then was on his way home. He'd be back at dusk to close it down.

On the walk home, Peeta felt a sense of urgency. He felt like he needed to hurry, even though there was no outward evidence that would prove that to be true. He did anyway, though. His feet kicked up dust on the same dirt path as his pace quickened, and even in the deepening fall air, his forehead broke out in a sheen of sweat.

Before he could even open the front door to their house, Peeta heard the crying. Not just the baby, but Tempest too. He swung the door open and was gutted by the scene in front of him; Katniss sitting on the couch in the living room with the baby in the sling facing out, screaming his head off. Tempest was in front of her mother, her face as bright as the tomatoes that grew outside in the summer, with glistening tears running down her cheeks.

"Mama! _Mama_! Look at me! Mama, say something to me!" Tempest slapped her hands down on Katniss's bare knees and shrieked at the top of her lungs, so loudly that her voice broke at the top. Katniss stared ahead with a blank expression on her face. When she got no reaction, Tempest let out a long, ear-shattering scream and threw herself to the carpeted floor where she landed with a thud. Peeta felt like he was watching all of this happen in slow motion and yet somehow he couldn't look away.

Snapping out of it, he hurried over to Katniss and lifted Roan out of the sling and into his arms. Peeta wasn't sure what the baby wanted – not yet – but he held him close and bounced up and down. "Katniss, what is going on?" he asked desperately, but got no answer. He brushed that issue aside for the moment and scooped Tempest up from the ground to take her away from the scene, too.

He took the children to the backyard and changed Roan's diaper, which lessened his wails substantially. He still fussed, but was generally comforted in Peeta's strong arms. Tempest sat on the grass faced away from her father with her legs crossed in front of her, elbows on the insides of her knees and her face in her hands. The shuddering motion of her shoulders told Peeta that she was still crying, and hard too.

Once Roan was settled into a light sleep, Peeta cradled him and walked over to his daughter. "Temp?" he said quietly, and laid a wide hand on her back. It filled almost the entire space up. "Talk to me."

She sniffled and looked up at him. Her gray eyes were red-rimmed and her chin was still trembling. "Mama went away," was all she said before burying her face in her hands again.

Peeta felt a red burst of anger flush his face. He knew all the old stories about Mrs. Everdeen that Katniss had told him over the years, and the person on the couch reminded him too much of Katniss's mother for him to be comfortable with.

When they went back inside, Katniss had disappeared upstairs. The living room was a wreck. Roan needed to go down for his midday nap, so Peeta took him upstairs to lay him down. As he passed their bedroom, he saw Katniss sitting on the edge of the bed, staring at the floor. His daughter was still crying downstairs. He couldn't make himself go comfort his wife.

That night, Tempest and Roan went with Peeta to close the bakery down and Tempest got a frosted cookie out of the trip. It got the first smile out of her since the incident, and she held Peeta's hand the entire walk back home.

After Roan was laid in his crib, Peeta knelt at the edge of Tempest's bed as she talked to him before she fell asleep. "Did you brush your teeth?" he asked her.

"Yes, daddy," she said, her gray eyes unwavering on him.

"Good," he said, stroking her hair. He spent a moment just looking at his daughter as her eyes began to blink slower and slower.

Tempest unburied her hands from under the covers and gripped one of his wrists, then interrupted the silence. "Does Mama still like me?" she asked, her high voice insecure and wobbly.

"Oh, Tempest," he said, leaning forward to kiss her forehead, "she loves you. She loves you _and_ likes you." Tempest chewed her lower lip and kept her grip on her father's arm. "I'm sorry she scared you today. That...you know that's now how Mama really is. She's just having a bad day."

"A lot of bad days," Tempest corrected, not meeting his eyes any longer.

"Sometimes people do," Peeta said, running the backs of his knuckles over his daughter's smooth cheek. "But she'll get better. You just watch. Okay?"

She nodded slowly. "Okay, daddy."

"You sleep good, all right? I'll see you in the morning. Sweet dreams, baby."

"Sweet dreams, daddy."

Peeta shut the light off and gently closed his daughter's door so just a fraction of it was open, and then walked the hallway to he and Katniss's room. She was laying down now, still in her clothes from earlier in the day, staring at the ceiling.

He was silent as he changed into his pajamas, not sure how to start the conversation he knew they needed to have. Once he was changed, he sat on the bed next to her and said her name. She blinked, surprised at the sound, but didn't look his way.

"What happened today?" he asked. "Help me understand. I know you know when Roan needs a change, you're so good that way. Why did you let him get that upset? And why was Tempest screaming too?"

There was a long beat of silence between his questions and her answer. "I'm just so tired," she said, and her voice was hoarse. "From the nightmares. Peeta, I am just so tired."

He looked at her face and believed her. Her cheekbones were sunken, there were dark blue bags under her eyes, and her skin tone was sallow. She looked more than tired; she looked exhausted.

"Come on, let's get you changed," he said, standing up. She sat up and lifted her arms above her head, and he changed her into her nightclothes. He kissed her softly on the lips, feeling only then how cold they were. "Come here," he said, and pulled her body against his under the covers. As they laid there together, he felt like he was holding a shell of who Katniss used to be.

There was a good two weeks. A couple of weeks where things weren't exactly back to normal, but they weren't awful either. On a drizzling afternoon following those weeks, Katniss was sitting on Tempest's bedroom floor, playing with her and listening to her talk after she came home from school.

"At school, I have a lot of friends, mama," she rambled, moving an armful of cloth dolls from one wicker basket to another. "Everyone wants to be my friend. We learned-ed about some Games in Lesson today. My teacher was talking about you and Daddy. She kept looking at me. But I didn't say nothing about it."

"What kind of things was she saying?" Katniss's hair on her arms bristled. She gave no consent for her daughter to be learning about the dark times that were in their lives before she came along. She hadn't wanted her to know for much, much longer.

"That before now was real bad. And you and Daddy helped make it good again. A lot of people liked you," she said, laying her dolls in a row.

Katniss looked long and hard at her daughter. "Yeah," she said, "I guess they did."

From the other room, they both heard Roan cry. Peeta was taking care of him in the nursery, rocking him and trying to get him to sleep. Hearing the cry made Katniss's eyes glaze over, thinking of the pain that she would undoubtedly have to feel by nursing him. She knew that was what he wanted, and she dreaded it.

She started to move her legs beneath her to stand, and heard Tempest grumble something. "What?" she asked, not quite catching it.

Tempest looked up at her mother, Katniss's gray eyes mirroring her own, and said, "I hate my brother."

Katniss stared at her daughter for a long time, unable to say a word. She knew what she was supposed to say, but she couldn't force it out. She had no idea how long she knelt there, her gaze boring into Tempest's, before something invisible cracked in the air between them.

"I'm just kidding, mama," Tempest said, rescinding her statement. She continued to look at her mother with impossibly round, confused eyes. "I don't really hate him."

"Okay," Katniss forced herself to say, and stood up fully.

When she walked into the nursery, Peeta was doing his best to calm the baby. He was walking around the room with Roan facing over his shoulder, patting his back.

"His diaper is clean, he's not tired, I really don't know what he wants," Peeta said, sounding exasperated. Katniss felt a prickle of anger that Peeta was allowed to feel at wit's end with the baby, when he wasn't the one who had to be at Roan's every beck and call.

"We both know what he wants, Peeta," Katniss said, reaching her arms out for the baby, "me."

Peeta handed Roan over and he immediately stopped squalling once he was in Katniss's arms. She sat down in the rocking chair, pulled her shirt down, and winced once Roan latched on.

"Does that hurt you?" Peeta asked, staying a safe distance away. She nodded. "Should it?"

"When you have a baby attached to your nipple more than half the day, yours probably wouldn't be feeling so great, either," she snapped.

"I can get you some cream from-"

"You think I don't have it, Peeta? That's not the problem. The problem is..." she shook her head, unable to find a safe way of saying what she wanted to say. "The problem is him!" Tears leaked out of her eyes and dripped down her cheeks, landing on the baby's body and head. "He never stops eating, and I am so sore and tired and I feel like I can't do this anymore." She broke down in sobs with Roan still attached to her, and Peeta hurried over to the rocking chair to wrap his arms around her. Roan paid them no mind. "I was never meant to be a mother. I always knew that. I _always_ knew that."

"Don't say that," Peeta said, sounding wounded. "You are."

"You say that because you want me to be. Because you wanted kids." She glared at him with such intensity that he had to look away.

"Do you really feel that way?" he asked after a long period of heavy silence, filled only with Roan's soft sighs.

"I don't know," she replied, turning her head away. "I don't know what I feel."

"I never wanted to force you into anything, Katniss..." he said. "I always thought that they were what we both wanted."

"Me, too," she murmured, "that's what I used to think."

Peeta left the room without saying anything else.

Later that evening after Roan was in bed, Katniss ran a hot bath. She turned the water hotter than she ever would've been able to before living in Victor's Village, so hot that when she got in, her whole body got chills.

She sat slumped down in the water so the line was at her collarbone, barely touching the bottom of her chin. Staring straight ahead, she let the thoughts consume her that she had been holding at bay for the past however-many weeks.

She would never be the mother that Peeta wanted for his children. She wasn't good enough for either of them, and Roan seemed to have an innate ability of knowing that. If she were gone, everything would be easier. Peeta would find someone new. Tempest's memories of her would be vague, and Roan would have no recollection of her at all. It would be better for everyone. At this point, she was a burden to them, and she was fully aware of that fact.

It didn't even hurt anymore. The acceptance had turned her numb to it.

She reached outside of the tub to grab her orange pill bottle, then popped four into her mouth. Three weren't cutting it anymore.

She sunk lower into the water so her mouth was submerged and closed her eyes. It would be so easy to just slip below the surface. It would be quiet; she wouldn't let herself come back up. Roan was asleep. Tempest and Peeta were baking downstairs. Even if she struggled against herself, they would never hear.

It was bound to happen by now. It was a surprise it hadn't happened before then. She slipped lower so her nose was underwater, then the world became muffled when her ears went under. Katniss felt the water seal over when her head submerged, and she then laid flat on the bottom of the tub. She had no temptation to open her eyes; she just kept them closed and pretended she was falling asleep. If she tried hard enough, it almost felt like she was.

After a few moments, her chest got tight. She was more tempted than ever to rise to the surface, but fought the urge. Her head started to get light, and she felt dizzy even as she laid still.

Her head became fuzzy. She felt herself start to black out, but a piercing voice broke through her hazy thoughts.

"Mama?" It was Tempest. Through the water, she could still tell.

"Katniss?" Peeta.

She had no control over her body, it rocketed her up from the bottom of the tub and the water sloshed around her as she gasped for breath, clutching the sides with white knuckles. They both looked at her confusedly with twin expressions on their faces.

"We couldn't see you. We didn't know you were just blowing bubbles," Tempest said, walking over to stand next to the tub. "Your water's really hot, mama."

Katniss met Peeta's eyes and instantly knew. He wasn't blind to what he saw.

"Blowing bubbles, baby," Katniss said, "I'm sorry, I was just blowing bubbles." She pulled Tempest close and kissed her. "I didn't mean to scare you." She could still feel Peeta's eyes on her as he stood in the doorway, not saying a word. "I'm coming out now. Can you hand me my towel?"

Peeta ushered Tempest out of the room as Katniss stood up out of the tub. His mind was cloudy; stunned over what he was sure almost just happened. What might have happened had he and Tempest not walked in when they did?

After Tempest was in bed and Peeta and Katniss were in their room together, he finally worked up the gall to say something. "If we would've waited five minutes longer, would we have found a corpse in the tub?" he asked.

He could feel her surprise. She didn't have to say a word for him to know that he'd seen right through her.

"We would've found your corpse in that tub," Peeta stated.

"Stop," Katniss finally said, "no, you wouldn't have. I wasn't trying to..." she scoffed. "I wasn't trying to drown myself. I'm not stupid."

"I know you're not stupid. That's why you were doing it while Tempest and I were downstairs and Roan was asleep."

"Stop it!" she said, her voice risen. "Don't talk to me like that. Stop it, just stop it."

"Katniss..." he said, his voice weak. "I don't want to fight about it."

"Me, neither," she said, and he heard the oncoming tears in her voice. "I'm just so tired, Peeta."

He scooted his body close to hers and wrapped his arms around her, burying his face in her hair. It felt different than it used to; scratchy and straw-like instead of thick and fragrant. He breathed her in all the same and kissed the crook of her neck. "Go to sleep," he said, "I'm right here."

When he woke up in the middle of the night, Katniss was still asleep. He marveled at the sight of her; amazed that she hadn't been up with a nightmare yet. The clock said it was just past 3, and at any moment Roan would wake up hungry. Though Peeta knew he couldn't do anything to fix it, he wished that she could stay asleep. He hadn't seen her look his peaceful in months.

She was lying on her back with one hand across her stomach and the other strewn over her head. Her hair was fanned out on the pillow; her eyelids fluttering with a dream that he hoped was a good one. He kissed her cheek gently, keeping his face close to hers even after his lips parted from her skin, and then laid his head down on her shoulder. "I won't ever let anything happen to you," he promised her in a whisper. "We still protect each other."

Moments later, when Roan's hungry cries woke her up, Katniss looked over at Peeta before standing. "Did you say something?" she asked.

He blinked sleepily at her and shook his head. "You must've been dreaming."

The next morning, while Katniss was in the nursery feeding the baby and Tempest was at school, Peeta made a call to Dr. Aurelius from the kitchen. He made an appointment for Katniss; knowing that even if she seemed a bit better, it would be best for her to go see someone professional. There weren't many openings; the first slot available was in a month, but it was Peeta's only choice. When he hung up the phone, his stomach sunk with the dread of telling her. He knew she would never agree to do it on her own. He couldn't force himself to tell her about it, not yet.

It's almost like Katniss knew what he had done, because as the days passed and the weather got colder, she got warmer. She was more cuddly with Roan, lighthearted with Tempest, and present with Peeta. He saw her smile more in that stretch of days than in the months preceding, and it gave him a glimmer of hope. Hope that before was just a bad patch that she had to get through to get to where she was now. He even considered calling and canceling the appointment, but decided against it. It was two-and-a-half weeks away, and he still hadn't told her about it. It just hadn't been the right time.

She always caught him looking at her doing the most mundane things; packing Tempest's lunch, cutting a loaf of bread into even slices, tying the ribbon at the waist of her dress. She would give him a smirk that he hadn't seen in ages, and it made his heart feel like it was blooming.

Winter was coming soon. But for the first time, it didn't bother either of them.

At the end of a windy day where the air held the first snap of snow, Peeta and Katniss stood on the front porch with their arms crossed, surveying their land.

"I'm thankful for this," she said, leaning back against the house.

"Me, too," he agreed.

"Back...you know, before, it was a death sentence to have a young baby in the winter in the Seam," she said, shaking her head. "My mother would always...always tell the women trying to conceive to try in the winter so the baby wouldn't be born then." She sighed. "I'm thankful we don't have to worry about that."

"We've done our fair share of worrying," he said, walking over to her and taking her in his arms. He kissed the top of her head, and she rested her weight against his chest.

"It feels like a whole different world now," she mused, twining her arms around his lower back.

"It is," he said, "thanks to you."

"Stop," she muttered, then looked up at him. "How do you feel about Tempest learning about that in school at her age?"

This was the first time they had talked about it since their daughter brought it up over a month ago. It was only recently that Katniss became present, and it hadn't been on the forefront of either of their minds.

"It depends on how they're teaching it," Peeta said. "She's in kindergarten. I'm sure they're not going into detail."

Katniss nodded, although he could tell she was unconvinced. "I still don't know if I like it. I don't like the fact that they didn't ask us first."

"Yeah, you'd think they'd ask the Mockingjay for her permission," Peeta said, chuckling.

Katniss smacked him gently on the chest. "You shut up."

He tugged on the end of her braid and she reached up and tugged at the end of his blonde curls, yanking much harder than he had. "Hey! Play fair," he scolded.

"You know that I never play fair," she said, grinning and taking another fistful and pulling again.

"Hey – ow!" he laughed. "You're so cruel to me."

"Don't pretend like you can't take it," she said, lightly punching his sturdy chest, "Mr. I can lift a 100 pound sack of flour over my head-"

"Oh, now that's just a low blow!" he said, yet he was unable to keep his smiles at bay. "I'll show you what I can lift over my head, just watch."

"No, Peeta don't!" she shrieked, but he grabbed her around the waist before she could run away and threw her over his shoulder like she weighed nothing.

"That's what I can lift over my shoulder, how do you like that? Although you probably weigh less than a sack of flour, if we're being honest."

"Oh, I do not," she said, the laugh still present in her voice. As he walked them both inside, she went limp and reached her arms as far as she could to grab two handfuls of his rear end.

"Hey!" he exclaimed, surprised. "Hands off the goods."

"They're my goods, I can touch what I want," she said, and slapped his butt. "Now that's nice."

"I knew you always thought so," he said, climbing the stairs.

"I did not care about your butt when we were sixteen, Peeta Mellark," she said, and he could hear the eye-roll in her voice. "I cared about not dying. Remember?"

"Hmm, hardly," he said, and tossed her down on their bed. She bounced twice and her tunic rode up to expose her scarred belly, something he always found incredibly endearing. She shrieked when she landed, and he pressed a finger to her lips. "Don't wake up the babies," he said.

Still standing as she laid with her knees bent over the edge of the bed, he walked his hands forward and buried his face in the crook of her neck. He kissed the soft, warm skin and felt her go boneless underneath him. If there was anything predictable about Katniss, it was that.

"Oh, Peeta," she murmured, her fingers dancing over his shoulder blades. "Oh, my god."

He pulled his lips away from her skin so he could look her in the eyes. He licked his lips and then gave her a chaste kiss on the forehead, one that she eagerly leaned into.

"I've missed you," she said, reaching underneath the hem of his shirt to glide her fingers along his bare skin. She could feel the fine hairs that she'd always remember as glistening in the sunlight, that first time she undressed him by the river. The opposite of sexually, of course. Back then, sex barely crossed her mind, and when it had, it was forced images of Gale because he seemed like the only one possible for her to end up with.

Now, she shuddered at the thought.

"What?" Peeta asked, noticing. "What're you thinking about?"

She pulled her lips between her teeth to stifle a smile. "I thought about Gale." She squeezed her eyes shut. "And how I am so glad that I'm not living life with him, and that I get to live it with you."

A slow smile broke its way onto Peeta's face, and he kissed her long and hard. "Try not to think about Gale anymore while I kiss you," he said, lowering his face again. He felt her laugh through the hollow of her throat, and wished he could capture that sound and carry it with him forever.

"It's been so long," she said, her voice a strained whisper as he combed his fingers through her hair and lifted her arm above her head so he could reach the scar where Johanna had ripped out her tracker. It was his favorite, and she would never know why, but he kissed it as she spoke to him. "Peeta, it's been _so_ long."

He intertwined his fingers with hers and looked into her eyes. "Do you want to?" he asked, unsure. She nodded. "You're positive?" he asked again, raising his eyebrows. "I don't want to if you're...if you're not, I don't know."

"I'm fine, Peeta," she insisted, "please, can we just have sex like a normal married couple? Before the baby wakes up and wants to eat?"

He looked at her looking up at him expectantly and knew he would give her everything she ever asked for, and this was no exception. "It has been forever," he admitted, and stood up fully to strip off his shirt. "God, I can't remember the last time."

"I'm sorry," she apologized, her eyes staying focused on him. "I'm sorry to you _and_ me." She pulled him back down on top of her and wrapped her legs around his middle. "Because god, I missed you."

She was right, it had been a long time, so Peeta took his time with her. He pulled her up to a sitting position and gently lifted her tunic over her head, ruffling her hair in the process. He gently unwound it from its braid and the familiar smell overtook him immediately, taking him back to a time when things were so much simpler. Before even Tempest was born, and the two of them were getting to know each other intimately for the first time. He can still remember seeing all of her body at once; studying it, memorizing her, and knowing for a fact that for the rest of their lives, she was his and he was hers.

As Peeta pressed kisses from her sternum to her bellybutton, she scraped her fingernails over his scalp, which made goosebumps rise up on his skin. He spent ample time on her burn scars, which made her squirm even after all these years of having them.

"Leave them alone, Peeta..." she murmured good-naturedly, smoothing his hair back from his forehead.

"I can't," he murmured with his lips against her skin. "You know I can't."

"What am I going to do with you?" she asked, smiling up towards the ceiling.

"Kiss me," he said, and pressed his lips to hers. "I've always told you that your scars are beautiful."

"And I've always told you that you're a liar," she replied, pulling his shirt off and tossing it to the floor. As his hands explored her body, she pulled both of their pairs of pants off, too.

"I'm trying to remember the last time we did this," she said, spreading her knees so his body could fit easily between them.

"It was early summer, you were only a few months pregnant with Roan," Peeta said, filling in the gaps for her. He looked down at her as he rested back on his knees, her elbows bent over her head and a wistful smile on her face. As she breathed, he could see her ribs appear under her bra with every inhalation. He wanted to take it off, to see all of her, but knew that wasn't what she wanted. She was so tender from nursing and insecure about the way her breasts looked that it would ruin the moment. And that was something he desperately didn't want to do.

"The day that I shot the deer and you carried it home," she said, her voice faraway and quiet. "That was the last time?" Peeta nodded. "Oh, that was a nice time."

"Tempest was at school. We couldn't even make it upstairs." He laughed.

Katniss giggled and pulled him down to her by the back of his neck. "Come here," she said, and kissed his lips. "I don't want to wait any longer."

"By all means," Peeta said with a crooked smile. He pulled her underwear down past the points of her hips, over the slopes of her knees, and then cast them to the floor, where his joined shortly after.

Just as he was about to push inside her, she said "Wait, get a condom." Her voice was shy, but sure. "I can't...do it all over again."

He understood without asking twice. He reached into the nightstand drawer and slipped one on over his erection, staring down at Katniss's face as she laid beneath him. He took her legs and slung them over his hips, and then held onto her thighs as he slowly pushed his way inside her.

It was almost a brand new feeling because so many months had passed from their last time. Peeta closed his eyes from the sensory overload, and Katniss's mouth dropped open with the sudden sensation of him inside her. His grip was firm but gentle on her legs, and when his hips bucked, she let out a desperate-sounding cry. Her chest was shuddering and her eyebrows were raised towards each other, her bottom lip captured between her teeth.

"Peeta..." she moaned, arching her back from the mattress as he continued to pump his hips. His thrusts got stronger and stronger as time passed, and he moved his grip to her hipbones instead of her legs so her body could act as his anchor. He pushed his fingers so deftly into her skin that they left white fingerprints behind, and soon he could feel the muscles in her abdomen begin to tense with the onset of her first orgasm.

"Oh, god," she whimpered, opening her eyes to look at him. She had a slight sheen of sweat on her forehead that he proceeded to wipe away with the backs of his knuckles before he leaned down to kiss her.

"Let it go," he coaxed, reaching between their bodies to help her along. He wanted her to go first. He wanted to be able to watch her come undone because of what he was able to make her feel.

When Katniss came, he was overcome with the feeling of her body melting around him. Her inner muscles tensed and clenched, and she threw her head back to let out a choked-sounding scream of Peeta's name. She held his shoulders in her hands, her fingernails digging roughly into his skin, as her body shook and writhed beneath him. Seeing her react in such a way to something he knew that he did made his orgasm come all the more quickly, and he was soon in the same state as she was.

When they were both weak and boneless, he pulled out of her and took the condom off, then kissed her cheek only to find it damp. At first he thought it was only sweat, but upon studying her face he discovered it was wet with tears.

"Katniss?" he asked, lifting his good leg over so both were on the same side of her body again. Still on her back, she turned her face away from him and tried to stifle her tears without any luck. "Are you okay? Did I hurt you?"

She shook her head in a rattled sort of way and wiped underneath her nose with the back of her hand. The tears were coming faster now. "No," she said quietly, and sat up. She stood naked in their chilly room for a moment, directionless, before slipping on a loose-fitting nightshirt and underwear. But even after that, she just stood there, faced away from him, saying nothing.

After realizing she wasn't coming back to bed on her own, Peeta stood and redressed himself as well. He touched her shoulder, which made her jump, and then led her back to bed. It felt like he was taking care of a child or a very, very elderly person whose mind was completely absent. After he gently guided her down on the mattress, Katniss crawled under the covers, faced away from him, and he was left wondering what to say.

"I should be dead," she finally murmured, "there's no reason why I shouldn't be. What if you had never tossed me that bread? What if I had never found water, or if the mutts had caught us in the first Games? If we would have eaten that nightlock? There were so many things keeping me from being alive. And maybe it was all for the best."

"Katniss, no..." Peeta said, his skin raised in goosebumps from her words. "You don't really believe that, do you?" Her silence gave him the answer he needed. "There's a reason you're here, a reason that you overcame all that adversity...you were meant for something greater."

"Yeah, greater," she scoffed.

"Where did this come from?" he asked, but even after waiting for what felt like forever, she didn't give an answer.

The only thing that broke the silence was Roan's cries splitting the night. Katniss got up wordlessly, and left the room to give herself to him.

The next day, the snow clouds outside made the house darker than usual in the morning. Tempest was especially cranky and wasn't cooperating while getting ready for school; Katniss could hear her playing with Peeta in the kitchen, clanking a spoon on his titanium leg, as she was supposed to be getting dressed.

Katniss was in the nursery feeding Roan, who was wrapped in the sling on her chest. He had a fistful of her hair in one hand and the other was beneath his body, tucked out of sight. Katniss found herself having horrible thoughts about the baby; thoughts that she knew no normal, healthy mother would ever have. His life was in her hands. If she left, he might not have a chance of surviving. And his life was so tender, so new, so easy to extinguish.

She shook her head as the last thought crossed her mind. Did she really just think about how easy it would be to kill her infant son?

Her lower lip trembled as she looked down at him, sucking the life from her. She was good at ignoring the pain now, since the number of morphling pills she was taking kept growing. It seemed like no amount of them would subdue the needle-sharp pain that was Roan's constant eating.

When she walked downstairs with Roan still snug on her chest, she saw that the living room was a mess with heaps of Tempest's clothes that she must have been sorting through to try and find something to wear. Katniss met Peeta's eyes over the mess and before she could say a word, he attempted a smile and said, "Our child is a tornado."

Katniss felt her face heat up instantly. She braced her hands on the baby's back so she wouldn't ball them into fists; she suddenly felt so angry that she couldn't see straight.

"Well, you named her!" she spat, kneeling as best she could to pick up errant articles of clothing. "You practically predicted it yourself, tempest, storm, tornado?" She glared at him with handfuls of little girls' clothes bunched in both hands. "Maybe if I got some help around here once in a while, then this wouldn't happen! Why did you let her do this?"

"Katniss, she was just trying to pick something out-"

"She could've easily done this in her room," Katniss said. "I can't handle this mess, I can't handle this!" At the high level of her voice, Roan started to cry inches from her ear. Katniss's face scrunched into a pained frown and she dropped all of the clothes she had gathered. "I can't do this anymore," she said, her voice transformed into a low growl so different than anything Peeta had heard come from her before.

She bent again and started picking up the clothes that she had dropped and then whipped them onto the couch in a pile, along with a few of Tempest's books and toys.

"Katniss," Peeta began, cautiously walking over to her.

When she flipped around, she could read him instantly. His arms were outstretched, silently asking for her to turn the baby over.

"I'm not going to hurt our child, Peeta!" she shouted at the top of her lungs, and Roan started to scream instead of just cry, his decibel matching his mother's.

"Just let me take him, Katniss," Peeta said, and couldn't look at her face. "Just let me calm him down. You're both upset, just let me take him.

Peeta hurried over to her, taking the baby and the sling so he could carry Roan on his chest instead. The baby stopped crying instantly after Peeta started patting his back and lightly bouncing in place. "I'm sorry, Katniss..." he said quietly. "Tempest, time for school. Let's walk." He gave Katniss a look she didn't recognize and left the house without saying anything more.

After the door shut behind them, Katniss collapsed on the living room floor in the midst of the mess and sobbed.

When Tempest and Peeta walked up after school got out, Katniss was sitting in the rocking chair in the front room, feeding Roan. She hadn't even looked at her daughter this morning, and was now seeing for the first time that her hair was plaited into two braids, just like she used to do her own. And her sister's.

"I'm sorry, Mama," Tempest said shyly, coming up to her mother after she walked in the door and wrapping her arms around her shoulders as best she could. "I'm sorry about being messy this morning. I'm sorry I made you be mad."

"It's okay," Katniss said, and even to herself her voice sounded hollow. "I didn't mean to yell. I shouldn't have yelled. I'm sorry, too." She kissed the top of Tempest's brunette head and cupped her chin in her palm. "I love you."

"I love you, too," Tempest said. "Can I sit on your lap?"

Katniss nodded and Tempest wriggled her way onto sitting sideways on her mother's right leg, leaning against her as Roan nursed on the left. Peeta leaned against the wall in the entryway and smiled at the sight of them. "Wish I had a camera," he said. Katniss made a small affirmative noise, then laid her cheek on top of Tempest's head and closed her eyes. "I'll go start dinner," Peeta offered, "cheese buns are on the menu tonight."

"Yay!" Tempest cheered, which made Roan jump, but luckily not detach. "I'm gonna go help daddy, mama." She got up and puckered her lips out for a last kiss, which Katniss gave her.

Then she was alone again, watching the trees blow in the distance through the picture window and listening to Tempest and Peeta make light conversation in the next room. She could hear him teaching their daughter how to knead the dough, just like he had taught Katniss years before. He was such a good teacher, and so good with Tempest in general, even when her temper flared. He was better with her than Katniss could ever hope to be.

And soon, Roan would stop needing her, too. She hated nursing, but she knew she would feel useless once this stage was over with.

The baby went to sleep just in time for Katniss to eat dinner without him on her chest. When she joined Tempest and Peeta at the table, they were all smiles, proud of the work they had done.

"It looks great," Katniss said, and Tempest jumped up from her chair and gave her mother a big kiss on the cheek.

"It's for you! We surprised you with all your favorites. Cheese buns, desserts, and sheep!"

Peeta laughed. "Lamb, baby."

"Baby sheep!" Tempest exclaimed, and kissed Katniss again. "To make you feel better, mama. Did it work?"

Katniss caressed her daughter's soft face and looked into her shining gray eyes. "I feel so much better. Thank you both. I can't wait to eat it."

The excitement to eat didn't last, though. By the time that Peeta and Tempest were finished with their second helpings, Katniss was still pushing around her first. They were right, they had made all of her favorites, but her appetite had waned. She couldn't put her finger on why.

"Mama, you didn't eat," Tempest whined, and then looked to Peeta for validation. "Daddy, Mama didn't eat what we made her!"

Peeta, for a moment, looked helpless. But his expression changed in an instant. "That's okay, Temp," he said, "we can just package it up and she can eat it later."

Tempest started crying. "I want her to eat it now," she sobbed. "We made it for her now!"

"Tempest, you don't need to cry about it..." Peeta said, sounding pleading.

"I just wanted to make you feel _better_ ," Tempest moaned towards Katniss, "I want my mommy back!"

Katniss stared at her daughter for a long time, just a bystander as Tempest spiraled further and further into a tantrum. After a few moments of Peeta trying to calm her down and Katniss staring on silently, she got up and left the table and retreated to their room.

After what seemed like forever passed, the sobs finally stopped. Katniss heard one pair of footsteps ascend the stairs, which meant while Peeta was consoling her, Tempest fell asleep and he was now carrying her to bed. If there was a better father than Peeta out there, Katniss didn't know him.

When he walked into their room, she was facing the wall with her eyes directed out the window. The night was sparkling, she didn't want to close her eyes and let it go. If it weren't so cold, she would go outside and take it in. But that would also require getting out of bed, which was getting harder and harder each day.

Peeta started talking without any warning. "Katniss, you know you can talk to me about any-"

"Yeah," she cut him off, pulling the covers up higher.

"Are you okay?" he asked, for seemingly the millionth time in the past few months.

"I'm okay. I haven't been sleeping, I'm sorry," she said, still staring out the window at the indigo sky and the scattered stars. "I'm sorry, I've just been so tired. The nightmares...I haven't been sleeping. Sorry."

Peeta sighed through his nose and she felt the covers lift up as he joined her. He laid on his back for a few moments, and then turned on his side to coil around her, be closer to her. When he wrapped his arm around her middle, she pressed her back against him and felt him kiss her hair.

"I love you," he whispered, "I want to help you."

"You do help me," she said.

"Tempest didn't mean what she said...about...wanting you back. She knows you're here, and that you're the same Mommy as always."

"I don't blame her," Katniss said, without missing a beat. "I want me back, too."

The next day was a Saturday, so of course Tempest was up even earlier than she would've been on a school day. She walked into the nursery, sleepily rubbing her eyes, and sat cross-legged on the floor next to the rocking chair where Katniss was sitting with Roan. They didn't say anything; they just sat with each other in silence until Peeta came in a few minutes later.

"What do you say we go for a walk before breakfast?" he asked, and Katniss noticed he was already dressed. The temperature outside was dropping by the day, and a walk didn't sound that great to her. They would have to get all bundled up, which was a feat in itself, and Tempest would probably be complaining of the cold within minutes.

She didn't voice any of these complaints out loud, though. Instead, she stood up and handed the baby to Peeta, and nodded in agreement. It was just easier to go along with him than fight.

She put her thick stockings on under a pair of wool pants, and buttoned her coat all the way up to her chin. Once she was dressed, she helped Tempest into her winter clothes and Peeta bundled up the baby. When they stepped outside, Tempest ran ahead instantly, and Katniss was surprised at how nice the air felt. It smelled cool and refreshing, and there was hardly a bite to it at all. She closed her eyes and greedily breathed it in.

"It's nice, isn't it?" Peeta asked, admiring her and then taking her hand in his. His other arm was busy holding Roan, who was hardly visible wrapped in a baby snowsuit and numerous blankets.

"Yeah," she said softly, and listening to the crunch of their feet on the grass that was still frozen with dew. "It was a good idea to come out here."

"It really helps to clear my head," he said.

"It always used to do that for me, too," she replied. "Don't act like I've never been outside before, Peeta." She meant to sound lighthearted, but her tone came off a bit meanly. "I grew up outside. This air is what I know."

"I know," he said softly, and squeezed her hand. "That's how I know she's yours." He gestured towards Tempest, who was running so far ahead of them that she looked like just a tiny speck in the distance.

As they walked further, Roan babbled on in Peeta's arms and the world began to come to life. The sun rose higher and the birds started chirping, and Katniss felt warmth on her face for the first time in a while.

"I have to tell you something," Peeta said when they got to the edge of the woods. They could still hear Tempest just past the tree line, her footsteps loud and clumsy quite unlike her mother, as Katniss and Peeta sat down on a flat rock.

"What is it?" Katniss asked, tipping her head up towards the sky. She could feel it in her bones that snow would come soon. Roan gurgled and laughed in Peeta's arms as he worked up the courage to say what he wanted.

"I…" Peeta began, and, sensing his trepidation, Katniss looked at him confusedly. He took in a deep breath and started again. "I scheduled an appointment for you with Dr. Aurelius," he said, and then broke eye contact to stare at the hard ground beneath their feet. Her silence only prompted him to talk more. "It's in a week, we have to take a train to the Capitol. I know…I know you probably aren't happy with me for doing it, but I'm just really worried about you, Katniss. I did it because I love you. And I want someone to help you who actually knows what they're doing. I don't know what I'm doing."

He waited a long time for her to say something, but she just stared back up at the sky.

"Don't you have anything to say?" he asked, on edge.

She shook her head. "No, not really," she said.

"Are you going to go?" he asked.

"If you want me to," she said passively, glancing over his shoulder to look for Tempest. "Where's our girl?"

Peeta directed his eyes in the same direction and found Katniss was right; the sounds of Tempest scurrying about in the woods were no longer. He felt a sense of dread rise up in his gut and clog his throat, and it was only strengthened when he heard Katniss's tone of voice when she shouted Tempest's name.

"Tempest?" he echoed, and stood up from the rock.

Katniss and Peeta met each other's eyes for a split second, and without speaking they knew what they had to do. Katniss said, "I'm going to run."

She took off in a sprint in the woods, faster than she'd run in a long time, but it was no effort to pick it back up again. She dodged the trees without even thinking. Once she had gone for about a minute or so, she stopped to listen. "Tempest?"

"Mama?" she heard, and the little voice sounded far away. "Mama, I'm lost. Please, come get me!"

Katniss hurried in the direction of Tempest's voice, not knowing why she still felt such urgency when she knew that Tempest was alive. When she found her, Tempest was on the ground with her knobby knees to her chest, both hands clenched into fists, holding tightly onto something.

Her fingers were stained blue.

"What do you have?" Katniss hardly recognized her own voice because it was so laden with fear. She reached for her daughter's arms and pried open her fists, and what she saw almost knocked her back. "Drop them, drop them right now!" she shouted, and shook out Tempest's hands even as the little girl shrieked and cried with fear. As she emptied Tempest's hands, Katniss spotted the bush behind her, practically overflowing with the berries. "That's _nightlock_ , Tempest! I've told you that a thousand times, you do _not touch nightlock_!" Katniss's chest was heaving. "You didn't eat any of these, did you?!"

"No, mama, no!" Tempest cried.

"Good. Get rid of them. Help me stomp them." After they pounded the ground with their feet, Katniss took Tempest's chin in her first two fingers. "Never scare me like that again."

"I won't, mommy," Tempest said tearfully.

She gathered Tempest haphazardly into her arms and sobbed into her hair, holding her as tightly as she could. Tempest matched her grip, and Katniss felt her little body shaking. After they let go of each other, Katniss scooped her little girl up like she hadn't done for years, and carried her back to Peeta.

Her heart was still hammering when they met him, and he stopped pacing and ran up to hug them both at once. He saw Tempest's blue-tainted hands and looked into Katniss's eyes; opening his mouth to say something, but nothing came out. Their eye contact was enough. He knew.

"She didn't eat any. She's fine," Katniss assured him, and Tempest continued to cry, facing behind Katniss's shoulder and wrapping her arms loosely around her mother's neck. "She really, really scared me, Peeta."

Peeta saw that Katniss was still shaking, and he petted Tempest's hair. "But she's okay," he said, but he was shaken, too.

"I'm sorry," Tempest whimpered as they were halfway back to the house. "I forgot, I was hungry, I forgot, mama." She sniffled and pressed her face against Katniss's legs. Though her legs were long, lanky, and hung down past Katniss's hips, she was enjoying being so close to her daughter.

"I'm not mad," Katniss said, and kissed Tempest's head. "I'm just glad you're safe. That's all that matters. It's all over now. We're going to go inside and eat some breakfast, and just forget it ever happened."

Her words were empty. She couldn't get those nightlock berries out of her head.

When the first snow fell two days later, Tempest was over the moon. She danced by the window and begged Peeta to take her outside in it, and of course he obliged.

"I have to run to the bakery to help load a shipment anyway," he told Katniss as he donned his coat. "You don't mind if she comes, right?"

Ever since the nightlock incident, Katniss had been extra watchful over their little girl. But she wasn't only obsessing over Tempest's safety…she was also obsessing over the thought of the handful of berries that they had squashed into the ground, and more importantly, the plant that was so full of them that the branches were weighted down to the dirt.

"Go have fun," Katniss said with a slight smile, and ruffled the top of Tempest's hair before helping her into her coat. "Stay warm, Temp." She gave them each a kiss before seeing them out the door.

Roan was sound asleep and would be for a few more hours, and the house was unbearably quiet. The new snow didn't help, it seemed to create a buffer between her and the rest of the world. It only made her feel more trapped within her own head, and she knew she had to get out. So not twenty minutes after Peeta and Tempest left for the village, Katniss bundled Roan up and carefully tucked his sleeping body inside the sling on her chest, and set out to join them.

The walk into town wasn't long, and she liked the sound that her old hunting boots made in the fresh, crunchy snow. She kept her hands around Roan the whole time, not out of worry, but affectionately. She even paused to kiss the top of his head and brush her nose against his hair every now and then; she was enjoying the time alone with her baby.

Even the days were dark, so she knew she was getting close to town not only by the changing surroundings, but by the yellow lights in the distance. She saw the bakery first, as usual. Surprisingly, she saw Peeta and Tempest standing outside instead of in, joined by another person. Katniss recognized Blythe, whom she'd met a few times, standing across from Peeta making elaborate gestures with her arms, talking animatedly to both he and Tempest.

They were smiling and laughing in a way that Katniss hadn't seen them do in ages, it seemed. Peeta's face was carefree and joyous, his eyes crinkled at the corners with laughter. Tempest's laugh seemed to reach all the way to the very tips of the pine trees. Katniss was dying to hear what Blythe was saying, but at the same time didn't want to know.

They were happy. Purely happy. She didn't have the power to make them feel this way anymore, and now she could see for herself that someone else did.

Katniss could finally admit it to herself, that they'd be better off without her. She had the proof right in front of her; how happy they were talking to Blythe for a few minutes out of the day. She knew that when they came back home they'd be withdrawn, hungry, and ready for bed. She couldn't give them what they needed anymore, and it was only fair to relinquish them to someone, anyone who could.

She looked down at Roan and the fuzzy crown of his head. He didn't know it yet, but he would be better off without her, too.

Katniss walked back home without meeting them like she had first planned. She didn't enjoy the snow so much anymore.

When they got back home, Peeta carried Tempest through the front door over his shoulder as she shrieked with laughter. They had run into Blythe at the bakery and spent a good chunk of time talking about the time when Tempest was a toddler and Peeta and Katniss would work at the bakery with Blythe as a team. Blythe had fondly retold the story of when Katniss tried to carry a huge bag of flour in and it broke at the seam and spilled over her entire body. Tempest, of course, couldn't remember this from when it actually happened, but found it hilarious hearing it over again.

Blythe had asked where Katniss had been lately. Peeta hadn't really known what to say, but Tempest told the truth. That she had been at home with the new baby 'who still needed her lots.' Blythe had totally understood. Peeta considered asking Blythe about depression after the birth of a baby, but didn't feel comfortable with Tempest there. He also didn't think that Katniss would appreciate him airing her problems to Blythe, either, so he kept his mouth shut.

They had had a nice time, though, and Tempest couldn't wait to tell her mother about the story that Blythe had told.

"Mama, mama!" she called throughout the house, stomping up the stairs on her heavy feet. She poked her head into the master bedroom and found Katniss lying down, facing the wall. She scampered to the bed and jumped on her mother. "Mama, I wanna tell you about the story that Blythe told us at the bakery!"

Katniss blinked her eyes heavily, feeling as if she'd been asleep for a full night when it hadn't even been an hour. "I don't want to hear it, Tempest," she said, her voice low. "Please, let me sleep. Go. Go tell Daddy."

"Daddy already _knows_ ," Tempest whined, slipping off the bed.

"Tempest, please," Katniss murmured, "another time."

Peeta heard his daughter coming back down the stairs before he saw her, but when she came into the kitchen where he was warming a loaf of bread, her shoulders were slumped and she was wiping tears from her eyes.

"What's wrong, baby girl?" Peeta asked, scooping her up after the bread was in the oven.

"Mommy didn't wanna talk," Tempest said, "she was sleeping." She sniffed loudly. "She never wants to talk to me anymore. She's always quiet. Why did she do that, daddy?"

Peeta wanted to answer her, but he couldn't. He didn't know himself. He just knew that Katniss's appointment couldn't come soon enough.

Katniss hadn't been alone again since the night of the first snow. On the morning of her appointment, the feeling of Peeta's lips on her cheek woke her up, and she instinctively rolled towards his body and opened her eyes. She saw that he was wearing clothes that he usually wore at the bakery instead of pajamas, and he had a bag thrown over his shoulder.

"Where're you going?" she asked sleepily.

"I have to run to the bakery. I forgot to leave the keys last night for Blythe," he whispered. "I just wanted to wake you up and tell you. I'll just be a little bit. Roan is still asleep and Tempest is just waking up. I told her to come in here if she wants to go back to sleep with you." Katniss nodded, feeling her eyes start to drift closed again. "I'll be right back, okay?" She nodded again, and he gave her a kiss on the forehead before leaving.

Katniss expected to feel a little body join her in bed, but instead was woken up by Roan's hungry cry. She groaned and heaved her body out of bed and walked into his room. She was so used to this routine that she could practically do it with her eyes closed, and most of the time she did. "Oh, come here," she said sleepily, and lifted Roan up out of his crib.

She sat down in the rocking chair with him and pulled the collar of her nightshirt to the side so the baby could attach and stop crying. But this morning was different. Roan was usually so good at latching, and suddenly he wouldn't do it. Katniss knew his hungry cry; she knew that he was hungry.

"Just latch," she pleaded, stroking his cheek in the way that her mother had taught her to do when she still thought she wouldn't ever have children. It triggered some sort of instinct within the baby to turn his head, that's all she knew. Roan's head did turn toward her breast, but he wouldn't hold on. He just continued to scream, louder and more insistently. "Please, just eat!" She tried the other breast with the same outcome. "What is wrong with you?" She had to have been trying this method for at least twenty minutes and Roan was still screaming; louder if possible.

Katniss hurried downstairs and dug around in the kitchen cabinets with Roan cradled in her arms. She found the bottles and formula that Effie had sent them just a week ago and read the directions on how to make it as Roan screamed and Tempest curiously looked in from the living room.

"What's wrong with him, mama?" she asked innocently.

"He's hungry," Katniss answered, scooping out the correct amount of formula powder as her hand shook and spilled it all over the counter.

"Can't he just drink Mama's milk?" Tempest asked, pulling herself up to sit on a stool.

"He won't," Katniss said, and shook up the bottle. It felt strange, feeding Roan something different than something she produced herself. She tried to push the makeshift nipple into his mouth, but he spit it out at her, all the while continuing to scream at the top of his tiny lungs. "I don't know what you _want_ ," Katniss said, her voice breaking at the end. "I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do."

"Maybe, he-"

"Tempest, not now," Katniss snapped, and took the bottle and the baby and made her way back upstairs, leaving her daughter alone in the kitchen.

Katniss started crying in the baby's room, bouncing him around the room as he wailed. Her breasts ached, she needed to feed him, and her hope was dwindling by the second. On a last-ditch effort, she tried the bottle again and for some reason, he took it.

She stared down at him in disbelief while he ate, for the first time seeing his entire face. He was drinking formula, something that anyone could make for him. Katniss wasn't the sole person who could provide comfort for him, who could keep him alive anymore.

Her breath rattled in her chest as she cradled him, holding the bottle until he was finished. Once he was done, she felt her mind go absent as she held Roan upright and burped him.

She laid the baby back down in his crib, knowing he'd likely fall back to sleep within moments. She walked into she and Peeta's bedroom and dug through a jewelry box that had been a wedding gift from Annie, and found what she had been looking for.

The pearl.

She hadn't held it for so long, but the feeling of it enveloped tight in her fist was not a new one at all. Katniss walked downstairs, put her coat and shoes on, and found Tempest sitting on the couch with a book that she had brought home from school that Friday.

"Where're you going, mommy?" she asked, closing her book. "Can I come?"

"No," Katniss answered, but walked up to her daughter and knelt down so they were face-to-face, staring into each other's gray Seam eyes. "But I want to give you something. Hold out both your hands for Mama." Tempest did as she was told, and Katniss set the pearl in the middle of her daughter's incredibly small palms. "This is the pearl that Daddy gave me. Do you remember that story?"

"When you were falling in love," Tempest said, repeating the story back word-for-word how they used to tell it to her, back when things were better.

Katniss's eyes filled to the brim. "You're right. And I want you to have it now, okay?" Her throat clogged and she knew Tempest heard the tears in her voice. "I want you to keep it safe for Mommy. Can you do that?"

"Yeah, mama, I can do that," Tempest said, enclosing her fist around the precious gift. "I'll keep it safe for always." She looked deep into Katniss's eyes and blinked solemnly. "I _promise_."

"My good girl," Katniss said, and kissed her daughter three times.

"What's wrong, mommy?" Tempest asked, rolling the pearl between her fingers just like Katniss used to do.

"Nothing's wrong." Katniss cleared her throat. "I just have to run out really quickly and get something from Sae's house. Okay? For dinner tonight."

"But can I go with you?"

"No, you can't go with me, baby," she said. "You have to stay here with your brother. He's asleep upstairs, but he won't wake up for a while. Daddy will be back any minute, okay? Can you be Mama's big girl and stay here and wait for Daddy?"

"And you?"

"And me," Katniss said, "just wait right here on the couch. I promise, Daddy will be home soon."

Tempest nodded shakily, on her face it was clear that she was very unsure about what was happening. "And you," she said, still nodding.

"And me," Katniss repeated. "I love you very much, my Tempest."

"Mommy, I love you," Tempest said, "why are you saying bye like you're going away?"

"I don't know," Katniss said, feeling the first tears spill over, "I'm being silly, aren't I?" Tempest nodded, and reached her arm out and wiped her mother's tears away with her entire palm.

"You're crying now," Tempest said. "Mommy, what's wrong?"

"Nothing, nothing, baby. My feelings are just crazy. Mommy's just crazy, right?" Tempest didn't respond or react. "I love you, my girl," Katniss said finally. "I have to go now."

"But you'll be back."

Katniss nodded, looked at her daughter for a last time, and walked out the door to the cold winter wind.

Peeta rubbed his hands together to keep warm as he neared their house, and once he got inside he shook off the snow that had collected on his shoulders. He took off his coat and hung it on the hook and when he turned around to go further inside, he saw Tempest sitting on the couch trembling.

"Temp? Temp, what's wrong?" Peeta hurried over to his daughter and knelt to her level. "Huh? Talk to me." Tempest wouldn't say anything, but Peeta saw that her hands were balled around something. "Where's Mommy?" he asked, peering into the kitchen.

Tempest started to cry and she reached up and clung to Peeta's shoulders. When she threw her arms around him, he heard the gentle clack of something hard and small hitting the hardwood floor. He held onto Tempest's back and picked up the item from the ground. He didn't need to study it to know what it was.

The pearl.

He pulled Tempest off of him to look her in the eyes. She started talking before he could say a word. "Mommy gave me that, she gave me it and told me to take care of it for always," Tempest sobbed. "I told her I would, she said she's gonna be back, she said she's going to Sae's house to get dinner stuff. Mommy told me to stay here and watch my brother." She continued to hysterically cry with snot leaking out of her nose and tears dripping off of her chin. "I'm scared, daddy, I want Mama to come home now."

Peeta didn't have the time to console her. He practically leapt up from the floor and shoved his feet into his shoes. "Wait here," he commanded in a very stern voice that he hadn't ever used with his daughter. The pearl was back in Tempest's grip and she clutched it for dear life. "Stay with your brother. Do you hear me?" Peeta bellowed, and Tempest nodded as best she could. He had to leave her.

He wasn't consciously telling his feet what to do or where to go. He was running as fast as he could, which wasn't fast enough. His titanium leg was never completely functional when it was cold outside, but he didn't feel the pain of it. He had forgotten his coat, but he didn't feel the cold either.

He just knew he had to get to her. That was the only thought running through his mind. Katniss. He needed to find her, he needed to stop her; he needed to save her from herself.

Because Peeta knew what she was doing. She had held onto that pearl for months when she thought she wasn't going to get him back; she had told him that time and time again. And now, she gave it to Tempest when she herself didn't plan on returning.

The snow was still gently falling. As he sprinted towards the woods, he could see the lights in the village beginning to shine. Life still went on.

He was afraid that his life as he knew it was about to come to its crashing end.

"Katniss!" he called, as loudly as he could. He knew he wouldn't get an answer, but he kept calling her name until his voice was hoarse.

When he broke through the edge of the woods, he started to follow footprints that he knew were hers. Small and evenly spaced, there was no one else's that they could've possibly been.

It was only early afternoon, but due to daylight in winter, the light was already beginning to fade. Still, he saw her just ahead, her back facing him.

Just as he was about to break back into a run, he heard the voice behind him. "Daddy!" It was Tempest. She was quite a ways behind him and there was no time to wait for her to catch up, and he wasn't thinking clearly. He needed to get to Katniss.

He hurtled his body towards her as fast as he could, yet somehow time seemed to move in slow motion. Before he could reach her, she lifted her cupped hand to her mouth and leaned her head back. Just as she did, he barreled into her and tackled her to the ground.

"Stop!" he shouted, and his instincts kicked into high gear. He pinned her to the rock-hard soil, sitting on her hipbones with his knees on either side of her ribs. "Stop it!" She wasn't wearing a coat, either, though it had been gone from the hook, and her fingertips were not only blue with nightlock, but with the cold, too. "Spit them out, spit them out, spit them out," he chanted, and wrenched open her jaw with his hands. Katniss screamed when he did, but he ignored her and with shaking fingers, dug the berries out from her mouth like she was a toddler that had eaten something she shouldn't have. There was no juice on her tongue or teeth; none of the berries' skins had broken.

He still didn't want to risk it. He shoved his fingers down her throat and forced her to throw up; which she did all over his hand, wrist, and side of her own face. She coughed and choked on it and started to heave more, he pulled her roughly up from the ground so she could get away from it.

"How could you leave us?" Peeta shouted, holding her shoulders in his hands and shaking. He had tears pouring down his face. "What the fuck were you thinking? What the fuck were you doing, Katniss?"

Peeta's entire body was shaking. The synapses in his brain weren't connecting. He was realizing for the first time how freezing he was. Katniss was turning blue in his grip, yet he couldn't move.

"Mommy, where were you trying to go? What were you trying to do?" Tempest screamed, her words hardly intelligible. "What were you trying to do?"

Katniss didn't look over. She shrunk into herself, pulling her vomit-covered arms into her chest and drawing her knees up to join.

"You hate me," she said. "Tempest hates me. The baby hates me. Everyone…would be better if I were just…gone."

"That's not true," Peeta said, and looked back to see Tempest standing about ten feet away, scared to come any closer. "We're going home. We're getting you cleaned up, and then we're getting on that train."

Katniss was under suicide watch in a tall, glass-paned hospital in the Capitol. Peeta left the kids with Sae and her granddaughter back home, feeling horrible for the state he left Tempest in, but he knew it would only be worse for her if she had to see her mother like this.

Though she didn't speak for the first 24 hours because of the sedatives the doctors gave her, Peeta stayed by her bedside. Speaking didn't matter. He couldn't imagine what she must be feeling, and he didn't even try. They pumped her full of fluids and drained her breastmilk with technology that they didn't have at home, which relieved her discomfort. Peeta wondered how Roan was doing at home with just the formula.

He had so much he wanted to ask her, but he knew now wasn't the right time.

He placed so much of the blame on himself. He couldn't help it. He had been right there, witnessing it all, watching her spiral further and further, and he didn't do anything. Not a single thing.

He had held onto the false hope from her good days, from the moments that he could recognize her. He should've known better; he should've known…

The first word that Katniss spoke when she was clear of the sedatives was Peeta's name.

"Peeta," she croaked. He had been lightly asleep sitting up in a hospital chair, but he snapped awake once he heard her voice. "Peeta…"

"I'm here, I'm here," he said, kneeling at her side and grasping her arm. "I'm here, baby."

"You're here," she said, and blinked heavily. "How long've you been here? We…we been here?"

"A day or so," he said, stroking her hair back from her forehead. "You were asleep. In and out, you probably don't remember much."

She opened her eyes fully to look right at him, and then started to cry once her memory came back. Her whole body was racking with sobs. He climbed into bed with her and held her, which was all he knew to do to make it better.

She saw a therapist every day for an hour for the next week. Peeta wasn't allowed in with her and she didn't invite him. They gave her a prescription that they promised would help. On the last day, they diagnosed her with postpartum depression.

"It can happen after a woman has a baby," Katniss explained, tucked in his arms as they both laid on her small bed. "It happened to me."

He couldn't tell which heartbeat was hers and which was his, they were so entangled. "They said I'm going to get better. Soon." She wiped a few silent tears away. "I want to get better. Peeta…it wasn't his fault." Peeta shook his head, resting his lips against the top of her head as she started to cry harder. But something about her sobs sounded relieved. "It wasn't his fault."

On the train ride back, they were equipped with everything she needed to recover. They sat side-by-side, looking out the window as the world they knew rushed by.

"I'm scared," Katniss said, resting her temple against Peeta's shoulder. He wrapped an around her to keep her close. "I'm scared to face her."

He nodded. "I know." The truth was that he was scared, too. They had, together, put Tempest through what no six-year-old should have to go through.

"I don't want her to end up like me," Katniss said.

He kissed her hair. "I do."

"Not like this," she said. "I failed her. I did exactly what I didn't want to do…I failed them, Peeta."

"No, you didn't," he said, "you're getting better. We're going to fix all this, together. You're giving them what you didn't have. You're trying, and you'll make it. For them."

She lifted up her head to look at him. He caressed her cheekbone with his thumb, which earned him a tiny smile.

"I can't lose you," he said once she laid her head back down. "I can never, ever get that close to losing you."

"I'm sorry," she whispered, and held his hand as it rested in his lap. "I am so sorry, Peeta."

Her hands were shaking when they walked up the snow-covered path to their house. It had been a little over a week since she was here last, but it felt like an entire lifetime had passed. Katniss was nervous, more nervous than she ever thought she'd be as she went inside to see her own daughter.

She could only picture how badly it would go. She pictured Tempest seeing her and turning away, or worse yet, staring her down with her matching gray eyes.

Katniss imagined her daughter being scarred for the rest of her life. First, being trusted with an infant at six years old, home alone as her mother left her for the last time. Second, witnessing her father attack her mother in a way that she had no way of understanding.

She didn't know if any amount of explanation would be enough. She imagined it already imprinted into Tempest's brain, and that it would stay branded there.

Katniss could hardly bear the weight of that.

She glanced up at Peeta as their feet crunched the snow, and he squeezed her hand.

"I'm nervous, too," he admitted. "Do you want to wait a minute?"

"I can't wait any longer," Katniss said. "I have to get it over with. I…I have to see her, Peeta."

He opened the front door and they were both greeted by the warm smell of stew wafting from the kitchen. Katniss stomach growled heartily for the first time in months. She forgot how _badly_ she could want food.

"Sounds like they're home," Sae said, her voice sounding far away.

As usual, Katniss heard her daughter's footsteps before she saw her. Her heart started hammering in her chest – Tempest wasn't running. The footsteps were slow, careful, methodical. Three words that were the antithesis of their little girl.

Tempest peered around the corner, holding onto the wall with her delicate fingers. Katniss couldn't take her eyes off of her; it was like she was seeing an entirely new person. Her face looked brighter, more open, and clearer than she remembered. Tempest was more beautiful than anything Katniss had ever seen, and she would never know what she did to deserve her.

Katniss got down on her knees as Tempest walked forward, keeping her eyes on her mother the entire time. When they stood just inches apart, Katniss sniffled and pulled the inside of her cheek between her teeth to stop herself from crying.

In an instant, Tempest threw herself into her mother's arms.

She buried her face into Katniss's neck and held tighter than Katniss had ever felt her hold.

"My girl," Katniss sobbed, "my beautiful, beautiful, beautiful girl." She felt her tears soaking through the shoulder of Tempest's gray tunic, but neither of them paid any mind.

"Mommy," Tempest breathed, "you came home."

A year and a half later, Katniss sat with her shoulder leaned against Peeta's with the wide expanse of the fallow-colored meadow before them. Just a few feet away, Tempest was sitting on her knees with her back facing them, hunched over towards the ground. Running towards her was Roan, wobbly as ever on his toddler legs, screaming with giddy laughter.

They didn't need to say a word. Sometimes they just came out here to watch their children play.

Tempest stood up and when she turned around, Katniss could see that she had a handpicked bunch of dandelions in her fist as she walked towards her brother. She stopped him from spinning in his happy, manic circles, and put as many flowers in his blonde ringlets as would stay. She held him at arm's length once she was finished and beamed at him, then directed him to run over to their parents.

"Mama, look!" Roan exclaimed, bouncing over. He flopped in Katniss's lap and she fiddled with the flowers in his hair as he faced forward.

"How beautiful," Peeta said, adding a few more of his own to the bunch.

"Tempy made pretty!" Roan said, giggling. He leaned back in Katniss's lap and she mirrored his infectious smile, then kissed his his chubby cheeks.

"Do you like it, mama?" Tempest asked, sauntering over and plopping down in between her parents. She held Roan's chubby fingers in her small hand and leaned against Peeta for support.

"He almost looks as pretty as you, Temp," Katniss said.

"But not quite," Peeta joked, and Tempest giggled.

Katniss touched the pearl, which now sat right between her collarbones, fastened to a silver chain. She would never be without it, now. After they had come back from the hospital, Peeta got the necklace made for her and she hadn't taken it off since. It reminded her of all that she came from, the past she never wanted to return to, and everything they had waiting for them in the future.

She knew that the shades of blue from her period of depression would never leave her mind. There was no way that they could. Instead, she hoped they could be brightened by the shades of yellow to come.


End file.
